


All the Things You Are

by rixie_rhee



Series: In the Mood [9]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Babies, F/M, Fluff, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 06:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13781439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rixie_rhee/pseuds/rixie_rhee
Summary: Nix looks like a man holding the most precious thing in the world. Much as Dick was loathe to interrupt that long-ago dance, he doesn’t want to interrupt this moment, either.





	All the Things You Are

Once upon a time, Dick had come upon a private moment between Nix and Rissy. He’d walked in on other moments, too, but in the one that comes to mind, everyone was fully clothed. Well, Rissa was minus her shoes, but she was without those as often as she could be.

Right now, she’s a lump under blankets, dark hair on a white pillow, and one bare foot trailing out from beneath her sheets and blankets. Fast asleep, poor girl. From the little he can see of her face, she looks pale and exhausted, and very young.

That’s still not what recalls the memory, though. It’s Nix, who hasn’t seen him yet. He’s sprawled in the type of disagreeable chair that’s native to hospitals, legs all akimbo. His head is tipped forward towards the small bundle in his arms. The baby is also sleeping; Nix’s face is full of innocent wonder. It’s the same way he looked at Rissa, who might just as well be his wife, the night Dick found them dancing to music from someone else’s abandoned radio. That was before she even knew there was a child swimming in her belly, and Dick had been struck by Nix’s expression when he looked down at her. He’s wearing that same expression now; the way he looked in Göring’s cellar does not hold a candle.

Nix looks like a man holding the most precious thing in the world. Much as Dick was loathe to interrupt that long-ago dance, he doesn’t want to interrupt this moment, either.

Nix looks up; his face is softer than Dick has ever seen it.

“Hey,” Nix’s voice is soft, too.

“Hi,” He whispers his greeting, it seems inappropriate to use any other tone. “Did she have a girl or a boy?”

“He’s a boy. We have a little boy.”

“You have a son.”

“Yeah.”

“What did you name him?”

Nix’s expression becomes slightly embarrassed. He hesitates at what he’s about to say. Finally, he clears his throat and begins to speak, “His name is, uh, Lewis Richard. We’re going to call him Richie.”

“Really?” Dick can feel himself blushing just as a flush creeps upwards from Nix’s collar. There are some things you cannot say.

“That’s the same thing I said. The ‘Lewis’ was her idea, the ‘Richard’ was mine.”

“I’m-I’m touched.”

“Do you want to hold him?” Even as he asks the question, Nix cradles the baby closer to his chest and kisses the top of his head.

“Um--”

“It’s okay, you won’t break him.”

“You just look so comfortable there.”

“In this thing? Here.” Nix hauls himself to his feet, holding his son in one arm. “Sit down.”

Dick sits and gingerly accepts the tiny bundle. The blankets are warm, either from the baby or from Nix, and it seems impossibly small. One hand is curled against the baby’s cheek. The fingers are miniature but complete with fingernails and the whorls and swirls on their tiny pads. Little Richie stirs, smacks his lips, and lets out a sigh.

Dick looks up at Nix sharply and Nix chuckles from his perch on Rissa’s bed. He runs a thumb over the arch of her foot before he pulls the thin blanket over it. She sighs, too, and her hand searches out for Nix’s. He intertwines his fingers with hers, she sleeps on.

“How can you be so fearless on the battlefield and be afraid of a six-pound infant?” Nix’s eyebrow raises and one side of his mouth turns up.

“Shut up.” He grins, though.

He picks up the coffee cup on the bedside table. His entire face puckers when he sips at the contents.

Dick barks out a laugh and hushes himself before he can wake anyone. “Remember that church bell? I don’t think my feet touched the steps the whole way down. This feels like that.” It kind of does, too. He feels light, buoyant, exhilarated at seeing something new and completely innocent.

“Except there aren’t any snipers here.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It is kind of like that.” Nix shakes his head. “Yesterday was--” He lets out a low, drawn-out whistle and looks at his hands before he looks back at Dick. “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to her. Or him.”

Rissy moves in her sleep. She snores once; it would be a stretch to call the sound lady-like. Nix puts a hand to her shoulder and shakes her gently, whispering her name. She shifts onto her side and is quiet again. Nix’s hand rests on the curve of her hip.

“She’s so tired. She had a rough go of it, and she hasn't been able to sleep.”

“She won’t mind that I’m in here while she’s sleeping, will she?”

“I don’t think she’ll care, no.”

Dick sits back in the chair, feeling awkward until he brings Nix’s child closer to his chest, and the suddenly the baby just seems to fit there. He brings his nose to the crown of the baby’s head and inhales. You hear about the way babies smell, but it’s nothing short of amazing. He didn’t even think this was a real thing, what a welcome surprise, especially after seeing all the ways bodies can be dirtied and broken.

\--It was the same sort of surprise for Nix, when he met Rissy, when they were ostensibly ‘friends’ and then more than that. And when he could finally admit, first to himself and then to her, that he loved her. He didn’t know love like that even existed. Rissy didn’t either, if we’re being honest--

“He looks like you, Nix.”

“Poor kid.”

“Lucky child.” Richie stirs again.

A naked longing passes across Nix’s face. “Can I have him back?”

The baby changes hands; Nix holds him, rocking slightly and making soft, comforting sounds. The baby stills, lulled in his father’s arms, his entire body can almost fit in Nix’s hands. The men talk, the infant and his mother sleep.

“What are you going to do?” Dick points at Nix and his small family with his chin.

“We’re staying here until he’s old enough to go. They’ll probably leave before I do. We’ll make it official once I get all my shit worked out.”

“When will he be ready?”

“After Christmas. January, February.”

“And you?”

“As soon as they’ll let me after. I’m not leaving them here alone, and I’ll have to take some God-foresaken troop ship.”

“You’re sure you’re going to be here that long?”

Dick first saw the smirk that spreads across Nix’s mouth in 1942, and he’s become familiar with it in the three years since. Some things never change. “Might have pulled some strings.”

Of course he did. He could do that, and he did, but you have to remember that he doesn’t take advantage of it too much. And who could blame him where his girl and his newborn son are concerned? Besides, he’s just as likely to use his influence to benefit his friends as he is himself.

“Until then she has her little house,” Nix continues, “and I’ll be with there as much as I can. I’ll make sure she’s taken care of. When’ll you get out of here?”

Dick shrugs. “Who can say? As soon as they’ll let me.”

“You’ll be stateside by spring, right? So you’ll be there?”

“Where?”

“At the wedding.”

“If I have to row there myself.”

“I mean, you’ll stand up there with me and everything?”

“Of course I will, Nix.”

Nix turns towards the window, his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. “I’m a little nervous, Dick. I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“You won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

Actually, he does. There’s Nix the friend, Nix the soldier, Nix the officer, the man, Nix the lover. Dick cannot claim to know much about Nix the lover, but he does know the man. They’ve been friends for more than three years, lived together in the most miserable conditions, shared foxholes and meager rations, fought together, slept nearly on top of one another, huddling for warmth. He saw Nix before he knew Rissa, the way he was with women, the way they were with him. He knows Nix’s insecurities, knows what he’s afraid of now. He also knows that Nix isn’t perfect, but that he is not the same man he used to be.

“She loves you, Nix.”

“It’s not Rissy I’m worried about. Do you see the way she looks at me? She looks at me like I hung the moon. Someday she’ll figure out that I didn’t.”

“Lew, she already knows, and she loves you anyway. And you love her. You wouldn’t hurt her, and you won’t. You won’t.”

Nix’s dark head bows toward his son. Their hair is very nearly the same color, only the texture is different. The baby--little Richie--has a head full of hair so dark it’s nearly black, just like his father, only his is thin and fine as a baby bird’s feathers, where Nix’s is thicker and prone to curl ever-so-slightly when it falls over his forehead. He kisses his son, pressing his lips to the baby’s temple, and then to the cup of his eye socket. Nix’s eyelashes flutter against the baby’s cheek; Richie’s eyelashes flutter, too, trembling like the wings of a butterfly.

Tiny eyes open, reavealing irises almost impossibly blue, as clear as Austrian lakes. Those little eyes are unfocused at first, wandering until they settle on his father’s face, only inches away. Nix smiles widely; his son puckers his rosebud lips, and then his mouth opens into a nearly perfect and silent ‘O.’ There are approximately three seconds of near-silence, and then the room is filled with a banshee-like wail that bounces off the walls almost palpably.

Rissa sits up as one rising from a coma and looks around groggily. She holds out her arms for the squalling bundle, which Nix gives up only reluctantly despite the loud cries emanating from the blanket.

She cradles her baby, smiles a hello at Dick, and runs a hand through her own dark hair, which is in a riot of messy waves.

“I hope it’s alright--”

“It’s alright; it’s you,” she interrupts, distracted by her child.

She unwraps her son with practiced hands, and Dick glimpses skinny, flailing limbs. The little arms and legs are wrinkled like an elephant’s and flexed like a frog’s, but pink and velvety soft. Rissa peeks into his diaper and coos at him while he screams at her.

She looks up at Nix, who is still perched beside her on the bed. If any woman ever looked at any man with naked adoration, it’s Rissa right now--and Dick is hard struck with a sense of longing. That’s his ugly secret: he’s jealous. He never cared about Nix’s money--to be honest, Dick thinks he got the better end of the deal on that one, he wouldn’t be suited to that kind of life, anyway. Not jealous of the easy charm, or the wife and child in New York, the upbringing, the education, or the privilege that can sometimes seem to be just as much of an obstacle as an advantage. He’s not exactly jealous over Clarissa, either, but he does envy what exists between her and Nix. It would make things so much more bearable to have someone who _understood_. This makes him feel petty and small somehow.

Still, he’s happy for Nix, for all of them. He just wants something for himself, too. It’s frustrating to feel distant from anyone who hasn’t seen, who has no idea and cannot have any idea, just how bad it can be. They ask the wrong questions. They get hung up on the trivial stuff that just doesn’t matter. You get irritable, and then you feel bad about that, too.

The baby is still fussing, but at least he’s stopped shrieking. Rissa’s finger is in his mouth and he’s sucking at it vigorously. She and Nix exchange a glance.

“He’s hungry,” Rissa says. She looks at Dick, he flushes again when he realizes what she needs to do, and how she’s either too embarrassed to say it or too nice to ask him to leave, or more likely a combination of both.

“I’ll go out to the waiting room.”

“Wait a minute, I’ll come with you.” Nix looks at the girl in the bed. “That’s alright, isn’t it?” Dick guffaws and Nix responds with a dismissive gesture.

“Go on, Lew. Just help me a minute first, please.”

Nix gets up to hold the baby and kiss his downy head. Dick brushes the wrinkles out of his trousers, rises stiffly from the chair, and stretches.

“I’ll be right out. Maybe we can find some decent coffee.”

“Okay, I’ll wait out there.”

He admires the baby one last time, tells Rissa congratulations and good-bye, and claps Nix’s shoulder. He feels like he’s got too much in his hands, even though he’s only carrying his jacket over his arm and garrison cap in his hand.

His hand is on the door when he turns back, ready to say something about how the baby finally stopped crying. Both the smile and the exclamation die on his lips. The baby--his namesake--has quieted because he’s nursing. Rissa’s nightgown is open, one breast covered by the baby’s dark head, the other nipple exposed in the afternoon sunshine. Dick blushes even though no one sees him--Nix is kissing Rissa almost chastely and both of them have their eyes shut. The baby is tending to his own business.

He eases the door shut behind him, closing it without a sound, and goes down the hall to wait in a room full of uncomfortable chairs.


End file.
